Bab's Matinee Idol

1917 American film

November 26, 1917 (1917-11-26)

Running time

5 reels (1,500 metres)CountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Bab's Matinee Idol is a 1917 American silent romantic comedy film, based on the Mary Roberts Rinehart novel Bab: a Sub-Deb, produced by Famous Players–Lasky, and directed by J. Searle Dawley. This was the final film in the trilogy of Babs films that starred Marguerite Clark.^[1]

Plot

As described in a film magazine,^[2] Bab (Clark) is infatuated with Adrian (Steele), an actor, and cuts his picture out of a newspaper and worships it. An epidemic of measles breaks out and Bab is sent home from boarding school. A few days later Bab learns that the play with her idol is in town, so she borrows money to see a performance with her hero. She writes him a note, and he invites her into his dressing room. She learns that unless the show gets more publicity, it will close. She arranges with budding publicist Carter Brooks (Barrie) and her father (Losee) for Adrian to apply for work at her father's ammunition factory, and to be thrown out and the story to get into the newspapers. However, Page Beresford (Chadwick), who is after Bab's sister Leila's (Greene) hand (and fortune), arrives at the factory to place an order for shells and, mistaken for Adrian, gets thrown out. When the real Adrian applies for work, he is hired and not allowed to leave, and misses the matinee performance. His irate wife, searching for Adrian, soon puts matters right. Bab succumbs to the measles and the revelation that Adrian is married completely shatters her thoughts of romance for the time being.

Cast

Marguerite Clark as Bab Archibald
Helen Greene as Leila Archibald
Isabel O'Madigan as Mrs. Archibald
Frank Losee as Mr. Archibald
Nigel Barrie as Carter Brooks
William Hinckley
Cyril Chadwick as Honorable Page Beresford
Leone Morgan as Jane Raleigh
Vernon Steele as Adrian Egleston
George Odell as The Butler
Daisy Belmore as Hannah

Preservation status

All three Bab's films are now presumed lost.^[3]

References

^ Progressive Silent Film List: Bab's Matinee Idol at silentera.com
^ "Reviews: Bab's Matinee Idol". Exhibitors Herald. 5 (25). New York: Exhibitors Herald Company: 27. December 15, 1917.
^ Nunn, Curtis (1981). Marguerite Clark, America's Darling of Broadway and the Silent Screen. TCU Press. p. VII. lost film.